Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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191. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade with respect to his responsibility for anti-racism policy if it remains the position of the Government that the explanatory examples given as part of the IHRA definition of antisemitism are not an integral part of the definition (details supplied) and therefore that the Government has not adopted them as part of its adoption of the definition. [33844/25]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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The decision to endorse the IHRA working definition of antisemitism was a result of careful consideration, taking into account a range of developments and initiatives at EU and at global level, in particular the alarming rise in recent times of both online and offline antisemitism. Most recently the General Affairs Council, in October 2024, adopted a Declaration which invited EU Member States to use the IHRA definition as useful guidance for education and training purposes

The IHRA non-legally binding working definition of antisemitism as adopted by the IHRA plenary in Bucharest on the 26 May 2016 states:

“Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”

As the IHRA notes, the purpose of the non-legally binding illustrative examples, which accompany the working definition, is to guide the organisation in its work, such as its core mandate of addressing contemporary challenges related to the Holocaust. Ireland acknowledges the examples as useful guidance, including in the context of the commitment made in the Programme for Government. It should be remembered that even within this context criticism of Israel similar to that levelled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic.